Family Christmas Day 9: Christmas Carol Challenge

I so love the little verse above. I found it while traveling around the great www. I love the fact that it rings so true no matter how old we are at Christmas time we all feel warm and cuddly and just like a child. Giving gifts or getting gifts from others makes us feel warm inside.

Great idea for tonight have a bit of fun. When I was younger I loved all the great game shows on T.V. one of our favorites was the Name That Tune. If you are not familiar with it the game is between two teams or individuals where they continue to guess what tune is played.

Name that Christmas Carol
version one:
Group and everyone plays at once: Create a song playlist from your favorite Christmas carols and songs for your party. Then make sure you write down the song and artist. If you are using an iPod you can create a playlist and if using a cd player be sure to note the CD and track number of that song. Tip: Use a cd with various artists then you can play a few from that cd during your game. Also avoid instrument music and be sure to include a mix of easy and difficult songs. In version 1, you play the first 5 or 10 seconds of the of the Christmas carol / song and if someone’s hand goes up they are they first to have a shot at guessing the name of the song. If no one’s hand goes up after 15 seconds after the song was played, start the songs again and play until a hand goes up. - You can play Christmas title only or you can make it harder by asking them to give you the title and artist. My recommendation is to do 1 or 2 rounds of title only and then add a round of title and artist. (If you do a title + artist round increase the points for an answer during that round.) Scoring - If the person correctly names the Christmas song they get 1 point, if they can get the title of the song and the artist 2 points - If the person answers incorrectly they get -1 point and they cannot guess again on that song.

Version 2:
Create your Christmas song list and gather history of each song, Year of release, information on the artist, and clever clues that give hints of the title 2. Instead of notes, contestants will bid on seconds to here the Christmas song before having to Name that Christmas Carol (use 3 second increments rather then 1 second and so the first bid can be 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, or 21 seconds) 3. Instead of piano players taping out notes you will need to use a cd player or computer and have someone turn it on and off at the correct moment. Make a cd or playlist of songs to be used for the game and research the song, year released, artist, awards, etc… be sure to know the order of the songs. We suggest having 15 – 20 songs ready to go.

Version 3:
Divide the guests up into 2 teams, but if it is a large group 3 teams. Each team will send up one contestant at a time and 1 clue about the song will be read. The First Contestant (Alternate the first bid between each team) will then be asked to say how may seconds they need in order to identify that song. Starting at 21 seconds and counting down (Remember bids are in 3 second increments). Ie – I can name that song in 12 seconds, 9 seconds etc… If there are no bids then a second clue is given and a third if needed. Once the bidding has started, each bid must be lower then the last bid, the bidding ends when one contestant challenges the other by saying, Name that Christmas Carol. Then the song is played for the amount of seconds that the person bid. The contestant then has 15 seconds to Name that Christmas Carol. Scoring for Teams (Adjust as needed) 1. Correct Christmas song guessed 1 point 2. Incorrect guess -1 point. 3. If there is no guess by person who had to Name the Christmas Carol, then the opposing player has a chance to earn 1 point if they can Name that Christmas Carol. Based on how many players you have and songs you have recorded, you can declare a team winner after one or two rounds. We recommend two rounds as people get into the game during the second round.

Some Christmas Carol Ideas